ortho 25, what developer

Hi,

I bought a roll of rollei ortho 25, hoping I could shoot a few photos in high contrast, kind of like shooting on the beach at noon, with overexposed areas well burnt, flare, and all the goods. (high-res though, hence the slow film).

What developer then? Logically, since I do want contrast, I would just prepare a soup of id-11 1+3, but am I risking too high contrast, kind of like a photocopy?

Do I need the low contrast developers, docufine and so forth?

Any samples in id-11?

thanks

piero

Last edited by pierods; 04-30-2008 at 07:32 AM. Click to view previous post history.
Reason: typos

Most ortho films I've tried were doing well in Rodinal 1+100 for about 11 mins. Any other developer that can be used at a high dilution should do the trick, HC-110, perhaps.

Using film since before it was hip.

"One of the most singular characters of the hyposulphites, is the property their solutions possess of dissolving muriate of silver and retaining it in considerable quantity in permanent solution" — Sir John Frederick William Herschel, "On the Hyposulphurous Acid and its Compounds." The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, Vol. 1 (8 Jan. 1819): 8-29. p. 11

I bought a roll of rollei ortho 25, hoping I could shoot a few photos in high contrast, kind of like shooting on the beach at noon, with overexposed areas well burnt, flare, and all the goods. (high-res though, hence the slow film).

What developer then? Logically, since I do want contrast, I would just prepare a soup of id-11 1+3, but am I risking too high contrast, kind of like a photocopy?

My experience is with the Adox ortho film, which seems to be fairly similar to the Rollei. I really like Diafine for this film in cases where I want high but still more-or-less pictorial contrast; I've seen some *very* nice industrial still-lifes with this combination. The contrast can give a really strong "gritty" impression without the problem of losing detail in the grain.

For a more normal pictorial contrast, I've used Caffenol LC+C, since it seems to be the cheapest low-contrast developer in town. Someday (in my Copious Free Time) I mean to mix up a kind of "half-LC" version and see if I can get intermediate levels of contrast.